Willie Horton 2006

The New York Times is taking steps toward being fair and balanced. Not the Fox kind, the reality-based kind.

Perhaps it's the unrelenting criticism they've received or maybe they're just sick of being the whipping boy for BS charges of treason, but either way, the Times is finally getting closer to representations of facts on the ground.

Tom Kean Jr., running for congress in New Jersey, is embroiled in a close rose with Robert Menendez, a Democrat.

Kean "intends to make a campaign film that accuses his Democratic opponent, Robert Menendez, of 'being wrapped up in the rackets for 30 years,'" which appears, by all accounts, to be filled with swiftboatings -- which is to say filthy lies.

Instead of just giving two sides the opportunity to shape reality irrespective of any objective truth (oh how ironic is it that the republicans have made the best use of the most asinine relativist thinking?), the Times appends this to the above quote: "...despite public records and statements by former federal prosecutors that contradict Mr. Kean's most serious charges."

A polite way of saying: he's lying.

Now let's see if the above technique can be applied to bigger fish.

Baby steps, baby steps.

Steve Gillard has this to say of Kean's tactic:

To go after Menendez in this way not only reeks of stupidity, but of racism. Tom Kean is making up shit contrary to the record and I can only believe it is to convince central Jersey independents that they can't trust the Latino from crooked Hudson County.

There can't be any other strategy behind this. It's Willie Horton, 2006.